Women do more than twice as many hours of unpaid domestic work as men, according to responses to a new question included in the 2006 Census. A little more than one in three women (35%) reported doing heavy amounts (15+ hours) of unpaid domestic work each week, compared to 12% of men.

Slightly more than half (53%) the men in Australia reported doing less than 5 hours or no unpaid domestic work per week, while this was true of slightly less than one-third (31%) of women.

In capital cities, 22% of Sydneysiders reported doing no domestic work, compared to only 15% of Canberrans. At the other extreme, 11% of people in Hobart did 30 or more hours a week of unpaid domestic work, compared to only 9% of Canberrans.

Young people

Young people do the least amount of domestic work. Just over a quarter of people aged 15–29 (27%) did five or more hours of unpaid domestic work each week, while 26% of this age group did no work at all.

The biggest difference in hours spent on unpaid domestic work was between young men and women who were parents. Just under 80% of mothers aged 15–29 years did more than 5 hours of housework, while 43% of fathers of the same age did 5 or more hours of domestic work in the week prior to the Census.

Parents aged 15–29 did more housework than other people of the same age – 68% did 5 or more hours of domestic work. Young people living in couple-only households also did more hours of domestic work than most other young people – 53% did five or more hours per week.

This is the first time ABS has included a question on unpaid domestic work in the Census. The results will assist in understanding the contribution of unpaid work to Australian society.

Comprehensive information about time use, including time spent on domestic and other unpaid work, will be available from the ABS Time Use Survey. These results will be released in late 2007.

NB: The figures in this fact sheet apply to those aged 15 and over and exclude overseas visitors. Where an answer to a question has not been provided (i.e. not stated) these occurrences form a separate category in the data and therefore some percentages do not total to 100%.